It was a wet winter day in Shropshire.
All my dog walks were water logged and muddy. My current favourite place to go was Benthall Hall NT just outside Broseley.
With water everywhere the reflections were beautiful. I took this photograph and have been waiting for the right time to tackle it. I think after my last print Summer Day and the complex water patterns in that, it seemed like the perfect next challenge.
So here's how I did it.
First flip the photo, didn't really matter for this but good to get into the habit.
Pencil drawn onto the lino to try and capture the shapes and flow.
Then I did a lot more drawing with a sharpie. I don't usually do so much drawing but I needed more of a plan. Usually I just have a basic sketch and work out the colours to cut out as I go but with so many lines in the reflection I would have got very lost. Bad enough as it was with my head going crazy with which colour to cut for each layer.
Then I marked the white bits I wanted to keep on the paper and cut them out. Every colour you want to keep on the paper is the layer you cut out.
The first layer of colour is very pale and boring but here it is.
2nd colour a slightly darker brown
3rd layer browner again
the 4th and 5th colours I put on together
4th and 5th a darker brown and a pale green
the lino was starting to look like lace work.
Again the 6th and 7th went on together, here they are on the lino
and 6 and 7 printed
the last colour 8 was black. I love that there are no actual trees here and the whole picture is just the water.
This is a limited edition reduction cut lino
edition size is 11
print size 33 x 33cm on Somerset 250gsm
paper size 42 x 56cm
price £295 available here
Here's some framing ideas, medium mount in a black frame
and a deep mount in a white frame
I also made some variations along the way which I will also put up for sale.